Category: Editor’s Pick

Editor's Pick Mythic Fantasy Short Fiction

A Clash of Wind and Lightning

Throughout its history, mountains in this region were more for the hardy and less for the fashionable. Spirits claimed the high places, and durable men and women claimed the places in between. Settlers of the upper valleys eked out a living and raised their families in splendid and harsh isolation, vaguely but persistently aware of the forces above. Few there were who ventured up the steeps though it was known that the highland meadows were good for grazing. Every so often, however, the high fever seized upon a restless, earthbound soul, and up past the crags he would go to…

Dark Fantasy Editor's Pick Short Fiction

The King of Kings

The shroud was pale, it hurt the eyes. Kohl over the eyelids shielded just enough, but a single overt glance sent a surge of piercing thunder straight back into the skull. Selikkar had warned the sun was deadly, but it barely stood a dissuasion. She had spoken of prophecies and gods unrecorded, decried that Neliesen’s journey was not sufficient to appease nature’s forces, yet It departed, and It walked into a storm It could not see to test the legitimacy of Its order’s teachings. The sand burned wherever it hit the skin, like bee stings of flaming magma which overstayed…

Dark Fantasy Editor's Pick Short Fiction

Sky Over Mountain

Under the mountain, known to the trolls who lived in her caverns as Cairn, winter was held at bay. In the cavernous network worming through Cairn’s rocky heart, the temperature remained constant, no matter the season. For trolls, with hides as thick as an ox’s, the near-freezing atmosphere was favorable to their hardy constitution. Not unlike the caves within Cairn, Hakon, the clan’s chieftain, was neither warm nor cold. He was stern, but fair, and his mood, like the innards of the mountain, seemed held at a constant. Such was his stoicism when he approached Noma, an elderly troll who…

Adventure Editor's Pick Short Fiction

The Lost King’s Curse

Centuries before the Great Western Expedition, the Kingdom of Vlitra spanned the northern half of what today is Arbus Arkad. At the height of its power, the kingdom’s territories stretched nearly from coast-to-coast. On occasion, settlers would stumble upon ruins left by that ancient people—generations ago, in the days of the early pioneers. They knew that evil spirits dwelt in those forgotten, dead places, and most decent folk avoided them for fear of being stricken with their curse. Most, but not all. The founders of the modern West were a sundry lot. Some were possessed of educations and had too…